by Tom Gallon
Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive)
DEAD MAN'S LOVE
BY TOM GALLON
_Author of "Tatterley," "Jarwick the Prodigal," "Tinman," etc._
BRENTANO'S 5TH AVENUE, AND 27TH STREET NEW YORK CITY
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--I COME TO THE SURFACE OF THINGS 9
II.--I AM HANGED--AND DONE FOR 29
III.--THE MISSING MAN 49
IV.--A LITTLE WHITE GHOST 68
V.--I AM DRAWN FROM THE GRAVE 89
VI.--I BEHAVE DISGRACEFULLY 109
VII.--IN THE CAMP OF THE ENEMY 129
VIII.--MISERY'S BEDFELLOW 150
IX.--A SHOOTING PARTY 169
X.--I TOUCH THE SKIRTS OF HAPPINESS 189
XI.--UNCLE ZABDIEL IN PIOUS MOOD 209
XII.--AN APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH 228
XIII.--"THAT'S THE MAN!" 248
XIV.--WILLIAM CAPPER COMES TO LIFE 267
XV.--I BID THE DOCTOR FAREWELL 286
XVI.--THE BOY WITH THE LONG CURLS 306
DEAD MAN'S LOVE.
CHAPTER I.
I COME TO THE SURFACE OF THINGS.
I came out of Penthouse Prison on a certain Monday morning in May. Letthere be no misunderstanding about it; I came out by way of the roof.And the time was four in the morning; I heard the big clock over theentrance gates chime in a dull, heavy, sleepy fashion as I lay crouchedon the roof under shadow of the big tower at the north end, and lookedabout me.
Looking back at it now, it seems like a dream, and even then I could notrealise exactly how it had happened. All I know is that there had beenan alarm of fire earlier in the night, and a great running to and fro ofwarders, and a battering at doors by frantic locked-in men, with oaths,and threats, and shrieks. The smell of burning wood had reached mynostrils, and little whiffs and wreaths of smoke had drifted in throughthe ventilator in my door, before that door was opened, and I foundmyself huddled outside in the long corridor with other fellow-captives.And at that time I had not thought of escaping at all, probably from thefact that I was too frightened to do anything but obey orders.
But it came about that, even in that well-conducted prison, somethinghad gone wrong with the fire-hose; and it became a matter of a greatpassing of buckets from hand to hand, and I, as a trusted prisoner, anda model one, too, was put at the end of the line that was the leastguarded. Smoke was all about me, and I could only see the faces ofconvicts and warders looming at me through the haze, indistinctly. Ihanded the buckets mechanically, as I had done everything else in thatplace during the few months I had been there.
I heard an order shouted in the distance, and I lost the faces that hadseemed to be so near to me; the fire had broken out in a fresh place,and there was a sudden call for help. I hesitated--the last of the lineof men--for a moment; then I set down my bucket, and turned in theopposite direction and ran for it. I knew where there was a flight ofstairs; I guessed that one particular door I had seen but once would beopen; the rest I left to chance. With my heart thumping madly I fled upthe stairs, and flung myself against the door; it yielded, and Istumbled through on to the roof of the prison.
I could hear down below me a great hubbub, but the roar of the flameshad subsided somewhat, and I knew that the fire had been conquered. Thatmeant for me a shorter time in which to make good my escape. I wentslipping and sliding along the roof, half wishing myself back inside theprison, and wondering how I should get from that dizzy height to theground. Fortunately I was young, and fit, and strong, and they had putme to the hardest work in the prison for those first months, therebyhardening my muscles to their own undoing; and I was active as a cat.After lying on the roof for what seemed a long time--until, in fact, thehubbub below had almost subsided entirely--I determined that I couldafford to wait no longer. I raised my head where I lay and peered overthe edge, as I have said, just as the great clock struck four.
I looked straight into the open mouth of a rain-water pipe a few inchesbelow me. It was almost full daylight by this time, but a hazy, mistymorning. I worked my way to the very edge of the roof, and lay along it;then I got my arms over the edge and gripped the broad top of the pipe.There could be no half measures about such a matter; I threw myself overbodily, and dropped to the stretch of my arms, and hung there. Then Iquickly lowered one hand and gripped the smooth, round pipe, and beganto slide down. I remember wondering if by some fatality I should dropinto the arms of an expectant warder.
But that didn't happen. I reached the ground in safety and crouchedthere, waiting; there was still the outer wall to scale. In that I wasless fortunate, for although in the grey light I made the circuit of itinside twice over, I failed to discover anything by which I could mount.But at last I came upon a shed that was used for storing the oakum,picked and unpicked; it had a heavy padlock on the wooden door, and theroof of the shed inclined at an angle against the high wall. It was myonly chance, and there was but one way to do it.
I stepped back a few paces, and took a running leap for the edge of theroof, jumping for the padlock. I tried three times, and the third time Igot my foot upon the padlock, and caught the gutter with my hands.Exerting all my strength, I drew myself up until I lay flat upon theshelving roof of the shed, scrambled up that, and stood upright againstthe outer wall, with the topmost stones about a foot above the reach ofmy hands.
That was the most ticklish work of all, because the first time I triedto make a jump for the top of the wall I slipped, and nearly rolled offthe sloping roof altogether. The second time I was more successful, andI got my fingers firmly hitched on to the top of the wall. I hung therefor a moment, fully expecting that I should have to let go; but I hearda shout--or thought I heard one--from the direction of the prison, andthat urged me on as nothing else could have done. I drew myself up untilI lay flat on the top of the wall, and then I rolled over into freedom.
Incidentally in my hurry I rolled over on to a particularly hard road,without much care how I fell. I picked myself up and looked about me,and began for the first time to realise my desperate situation. Whatearthly chance was there for me, clad as I was in convict garb, in awild country place, at something after four o'clock in the morning? Iwas branded before all men; I was a pariah, to be captured by hook or bycrook; the hand of the meanest thing I might meet would legitimately beagainst me.
But then I was only five-and-twenty, and the coming day had in it apromise of sweetness and of beauty--and I was free! Even while I castabout in my mind to know what I should do, I know that I rejoiced in mystrength and in my young manhood; I know that I could have grappledalmost gleefully with any adverse fate that might have risen up againstme. But I recognised that the first thing to do would be to make forcover of some kind, until I could make shift to get a change ofclothing, or to decide after my hurried flight what the next move was tobe.
After going some little way I dropped down into a ditch, and looked backat the prison. It stood up grim and silent against the morning sky, andthere was now no sign of any disturbance about it. Evidently for thepresent
I had not been missed; only later would come a mustering of theprisoners, and my number would be called, and there would be no answer.That gave me time, but not time enough. I determined to make my wayacross country as quickly as I could before the world was astir, and soput as great a distance as possible between myself and the prison.
But by the time I had run a few miles, and could see in the neardistance the roofs of cottages, I began to realise that in the countrypeople have a bad habit of rising at a most unearthly hour. It was butlittle after five o'clock, and yet already smoke was coming from cottagechimneys; more than once I had a narrow squeak of it, in coming almostface to face with some labourer trudging early to his work in thefields. Daylight was not my time, it was evident; I must wait for thefriendly darkness, even though I waited hungry.
The record of a great part of that day is easily set down. I lay perduin a little wood, where, by raising my head, I could see out on to thebroad highway that was presently in some indefinite fashion to set me onthe greater road for freedom. All day long the sun blazed down on thatroad, and all day long from my hiding-place I watched vehicles andpedestrians passing to and fro; I had much time for thought. Once somelittle children toddled down hand-in-hand into the wood, and began topick flowers near where I lay hidden; that was the first sight ofanything beautiful I had had for a good long time, as you shallpresently understand. Despite the danger to myself, if they should haveseen me and raised any alarm, I was sorry enough when they toddled awayagain.
There was so much to be thought about, as I lay there on my face,plucking at the cool green grasses, and drinking in the beauty of thewood. For I was but five-and-twenty, and yet had never known really whatlife was like. I had been shut away all my days in a prison, almost asgrim and as bad as that from which I had this day escaped; and I hadleft it for that greater prison where they branded men and set them totoil like beasts.
My earliest recollections had been of my uncle--Zabdiel Blowfield. Iseemed to have a vision of him when I was very, very small, and when Ilay quaking in a big bed in a horrible great room, bending over me, andflaring a candle at me, as though with the amiable intention of startingmy night's rest well with a personal nightmare. Uncle Zabdiel hadbrought me up. It seems that I was left on his hands when I was a merechild; I easily developed and degenerated into his slave. At the age offourteen I knew no more of the world than a baby of fourteen months, andwhat smattering of education I had had was pressed then into my uncle'sservice; I became his clerk.
He lived in a great house near Barnet, and from there he conducted hisbusiness. It was a paying business, and although I touched at first onlythe fringe of it, I came to understand that Zabdiel Blowfield wassomething of a human spider, gathering into his clutches any number offools who had money to lose, together with others who wanted money, andwere prepared to pay a price for it. He taught me his business, or justso much of it as should make me useful in the drudgery of it; and, as ithappened, he taught me too much.
I had ten years of that slavery--ten years, during which I grew tomanhood, and to strength and vigour. For while he thought he suppressedme, and while, as a matter of fact, he half-starved me, and dressed mein his own cast-off clothing, and kept my young nose to the grindstoneof his business, I contrived, within the last year or so at least, tolead something of a double life. I was young, and that alone shall pleadmy excuse. If another excuse were wanted, it might be summed up inthis: that the world called me--that world that was a gloriousuncertainty, of which I knew nothing and longed to know a great deal.
Uncle Zabdiel regarded me as very much of a poor fool; it never enteredinto his head for a moment to suspect the machine he had taught to docertain mechanical things. But I, who never had a penny for my own,constantly had gold passing through my fingers, and gold spelt a way outinto the great world. I was tempted, and I fell; it was quite easy toalter the books.
I had two years of it. They were two years during which I worked as hardas ever during the day, and escaped from that prison when darkness hadfallen. I always contrived to get back before the dawn, or before myuncle had come into the place he called his office; and by that time Ihad changed back into the shabby, apparently broken, creature he knewfor his slave. For the rest I did nothing very vicious; but I sawsomething of the world outside, and I spent what I could get of myuncle's money.
The blow fell, as I might have expected--and that, too, by the merestchance. I had grown reckless; there seemed no possibility of my beingfound out. But my Uncle Zabdiel happened to light upon a something thatmade him suspicious, and from that he went to something else. Withoutsaying a word to me, he must have unwound the tangle slowly bit by bit,until it stood out before him clearly; and then he took to watching.
I shall never forget the morning when he caught me. I got into myaccustomed window, in those gayer clothes I affected in my briefholidays, and I came face to face with the old man in my room. He wassitting on the side of the bed, with his black skull-cap thrust on theback of his head, and with his chin resting on his stick; and for a longtime after I knew the game was up he neither spoke nor moved. As forme, I had had my good time, and I simply wondered in a dull fashion whathe was going to do.
"You needn't say anything, Norton Hyde," said Uncle Zabdiel at last. "Iknow quite as much as you can tell me, and perhaps a little more. You'rean ungrateful dog, and like other ungrateful dogs you shall bepunished."
"I wanted to live like other men," I said sullenly.
"Haven't I fed you, lodged you, looked after you?" he snapped out."Where would you have been, but for me?"
"I might have been a better man," I answered him. "I've slaved for youfor ten long years, and you've done your best to starve me, body andsoul. I've taken your money, but it isn't as much as you'd have had topay me in those ten years, if I'd been some poor devil of a clerkindependent of you!"
"We won't bandy words," said my uncle, getting up from my bed. "Go tobed; I'll decide what to do with you in the morning."
Now, wisely speaking, of course, I ought to have made good my escapethat night. But there was a certain bravado in me--a certain feeling,however wrong, that I was justified to an extent in what I had done--forthe labourer is worthy of his hire. So I went to bed, and awaited themorning with what confidence I could. Being young, I slept soundly.
I was the only living relative of Zabdiel Blowfield, and one would havethought--one, at least, who did not know him--that he would have shownsome mercy. But mercy was not in his nature, and I had wounded the manin that tenderest part of him--the pocket. Incredible as it may seem, Iwas handed over to justice on a charge of forgery and falsification ofbooks, and in due course I stood my trial, with my uncle as the chiefwitness against me.
Uncle Zabdiel made a very excellent witness, too, from the point of viewof the prosecution. I--Norton Hyde--stood in the dock, I flatter myself,rather a fine figure of a young man, tall, and straight, anddark-haired; the prosecutor--and a reluctant one at that--stood bowed,and old, and trembling, and told the story of my ingratitude. He hadbrought me up, and he had educated me; he had fed, and clothed, andlodged me; but for him I must have died ignominiously long before. And Ihad robbed him, and had spent his money in riotous living. He wept whilehe told the tale, for the loss of the money was a greater thing thanmost men would suppose.
The limb of the law he had retained for the prosecution had a separatecut at me on his account. According to that gentleman I was a monster; Iwould have robbed a church; there was scarcely any crime in the calendarof which I would not have been capable. It was plainly suggested thatthe best thing that could happen to society would be to get me out ofthe way for as many years as possible.
The judge took up the case on something of the same lines. He preached aneat little sermon on the sin of ingratitude, and incidentally wonderedwhat the youth of the country were coming to in these degenerate days;he left me with confidence to a jury of respectable citizens, who were,I was convinced, every man Jack of them, fathers of families. I wasdoomed from t
he beginning, and I refused to say anything in my owndefence.
So they packed me off quietly out of the way for ten years; and UncleZabdiel, I have no doubt, went back to his old house, and thereafterengaged a clerk at a starvation wage, and kept a pretty close eye uponhim. I only know that, so far as I was concerned, he sidled up to me asI was leaving the dock, and whispered, with a leer--
"You'll come out a better man, Norton--a very much better man."
Perhaps I had not realised the tragedy of the business at that time, forit must be understood that I had not in any sense of the word lived.Such small excursions as I had made into life had been but mere dippingsinto the great sea of it; of life itself I knew nothing. And now theywere to shut me away for ten years--or a little less, if I behavedmyself with decorum--and after that I was to be given an opportunity tomake a real start, if the gods were kind to me.
However, it is fair to say that up to the actual moment of my escapefrom Penthouse Prison I had accepted my fate with some measure ofresignation. I had enough to eat, and work for my hands, and I sleptwell; in that sense I was a young and healthy animal, with a past thathad not been interesting, and a future about which I did not care tothink. But as I lay in the wood all that long day better thoughts cameto me; I had hopes and desires such as I had not had before. I saw in amental vision sweet country places, and fair homes, and decent men andwomen; I was to meet and touch them all some day, when I had workedmyself out of this present tangle. Alas! I did not then know how much Iwas to go through first!
I had lain so long, with but the smallest idea of where I actually was,and with a ravening hunger upon me, that I had actually seen menreturning from their work to their homes in the late afternoon before Ibestirred myself to think of what I was to do. More than once, as I laythere, I had seen, speeding along the great road above me, motor-carsthat annihilated space, and were gone in a cloud of dust. I had aridiculous feeling that if I were nimble enough I might manage to boardone of those, and so get away beyond the reach of pursuit. For alwaysthe great prison menaced me, standing as it did within a mile or two ofwhere I lay. I knew that the pursuit must already have started; Iwondered that I had not yet seen a warder.
And then came deliverance. You may say it was miraculous, if you will; Ican only set down here the fact as it happened. I saw in the distance,winding down a long hill, a grey monster scarcely darker than the roadover which it swept, and I knew without the telling that the greymonster was a racing car. As it drew nearer I saw that it had asharpened front like an inverted boat, and behind that sharpened frontcrouched a man, with his hands upon the wheel and his face masked byhideous goggles. He swept down towards the place where I lay at aterrific pace, and, half in wonder at the sight, and half fascinated byit, I drew myself forward through the bushes until I lay at the veryside of the road, with my chin uplifted and my face literally peeringthrough the hedge.
The grey monster came on and on, and the curious thing was that itslackened speed a little as it got near to me, so that I saw the dustyoutlines of it, and the great bulk of it set low between its wheels, andcaught the sound of its sobbing breath. And then it stopped at the sideof the road, so near to me that I could almost have stretched out a handand touched the nearest wheel.
The man got down stiffly out of his seat, and thrust the goggles up overhis cap and began to pull off his driving-gloves. Something had gonewrong with the monster, and I heard the man heave a quick sigh as hebent down to examine the machinery. For a little time his headdisappeared among the works, and then, with a grunt of relief, hestraightened himself and began pulling on his gloves; and so, by amiracle, turning his head a little, looked down into my upturned face.
He was a youngish man with a thin, keen, shaven face, tight-lipped andclear-eyed. He had on a long grey coat, buttoned close about him, andhis appearance, with the cap drawn down over his ears and the gogglesset on the front of it, was not altogether prepossessing. But the manlooked a sportsman, and somehow or other I was attracted to him.Scarcely knowing what I did, I glanced to right and left along the road,and then rose to my feet in the ditch.
He gave a low whistle, and nodded slowly, finished pulling on hisgloves, and set his gloved hands against his sides. "Hullo, my friend,"he said at last, "I heard about you on the hill up yonder. You're wantedbadly."
"I know that," I said huskily, for my throat was dry, alike from thirstand from a new fear that had sprung up in me. "Perhaps you'd like todrive me back to meet them."
"If you're anxious," he retorted, with a laugh. "Only it happens thatI'm not that sort. It would be playing it rather low down to do that,wouldn't it?"
"I should think so," I said, answering his laugh with another that hadsomething of a sob in it.
"What's your particular crime?" he asked. "Murder?"
"Nothing half so bad as that," I answered him. "I stole some money, andhad a good time; now I've been paying the penalty. I've done nearly oneout of my ten years."
He turned away abruptly, and I heard him mutter something which soundedlike "Poor devil!" but I would not be sure of that. Then, after bendingfor a moment again over his car, he said, without looking up at me, "Itake it you'd like to get out of this part of the country, ifpossible?"
"Anywhere!" I exclaimed, in a shaking whisper. "I only want a chance."
He looked along the lines of the grey monster, and laid his hand uponthe machine affectionately. "Then you can't do better than travel withme," he said. "I can swing you along at a pace that'll knock the breathout of you if you're not used to it, and I can drop you a hundred milesor so along the road. There's no one in sight; get in. Here's a sparepair of goggles."
I adjusted the goggles with a shaking hand, and tried to thank him. Hehad tossed a short grey coat to me, and that I put about my shoulders.Almost before I was in the seat beside him the grey car began to move,and then I saw the landscape slipping past us in two streaks. I triedonce or twice to speak, but the words were driven back into my mouth,and I could not get anything articulate out.
My recollection of that journey is dim and obscure. I only know that nowand then, as we flew along, the man jerked out questions at me, and sodiscovered that I had had nothing to eat all day, and was practicallyfamished. He slowed down the car and showed me where, in a tin caseunder my feet, were some sandwiches and a flask; and I took insandwiches and dust gratefully enough for the next few miles, and gulpeddown a little out of the flask. The houses were beginning to be morefrequent, and we met more vehicles on the road, when presently he sloweddown to light his lamps.
"At what particular spot would you like to be dropped?" he asked, as hecame round my side of the car and bent down over the lamp there. "Choosefor yourself."
I told him I hardly knew; I think then, for the first time, I realisedthat I was in as bad a case as ever, and that, save for my short coatand the goggles, I was clad exactly as when I had dropped over myprison wall. I think I told him that all places were alike to me, andthat I would leave it to him.
So we went on again at a diminishing speed, with the motor horn soundingcontinuously; flashed through an outlying village or two, until I saw,something to my horror, that the man was drawing into London. I turnedto him to protest, but he smiled and shook his head.
"Don't you worry; I'm going to see you through this--just for the sportof the thing," he said, raising his voice to a shout, so that he mightbe heard above the roar of the flying wheels. "I'm going to take youslap through London to my place, and I'm going to give you a change ofclothes and some food. To-morrow, if you like, I'll whack you down tothe coast, and ship you off somewhere. You're as safe as houses with me;I've taken an interest in you."
I could only sit still, and wonder what good providence had suddenlytossed this man into my world to do this thing for me. I could havekissed his hands; I could have worshipped him, as one might worship agod. I felt that my troubles were over; for the first time in all mylife I had someone to lean upon, someone willing and anxious to help me.
And then as suddenly the whole thing came to an end. We had got througha village in safety, and had swung at a terrific pace round a corner,and there was a huge hay-waggon in the very middle of the road. Therewas no time to pull up, and the road was too narrow to allow the carfree passage on either side. I heard the man beside me give a gasp as hebent over his wheel, and then we swerved to the right, and flew up thebank at the side of the road, in a mad endeavour to pass the waggon.
We shot past it somehow, and I thought we should drop to the road again;instead, the car continued up the bank, seemed to hang there for amoment, even at the terrific pace we were going, and then began to turnover. I say began to turn over because in that fraction of a secondevents seemed to take hours to finish. I know I jumped, and landed allin a heap, and seemed to see, as I fell, the car before me turning over;and then for a moment or two I knew nothing.
When I recovered consciousness I got slowly to my knees, and lookedabout me. My head ached fearfully, but I seemed to have no very greatinjuries. A dozen yards in front of me lay the grey monster, with threewheels left to it, and those three upreared helplessly in the air. Myfriend the driver I could not see anywhere. I staggered to my feet,relieved to find that I could walk, and went forward to the car; andthere, on the other side of it, lay my friend, doubled up andunconscious. He, too, seemed to have escaped any very great injury as bya miracle. I straightened him out and touched him here and there, in thehope to discover if any bones were broken; he only groaned a little, andeven that sound was cheering. The man was not dead.
I had no thought of my own safety until I heard the rumble of wheels,and saw the cause of all the disaster--that hay-waggon--coming towardsme. From the opposite direction, too, I heard the sharp toot-toot of amotor horn, and knew that help was coming. And then, for the first time,I realised that that help was not for me, and that I must not remainwhere I was a moment longer: for if my situation had been bad before, itwas now truly frightful. I was somewhere in the neighbourhood ofLondon--near to a northern suburb--and I was in convict garb, partiallyconcealed by a short grey coat, and I was hatless.
Fortunately for me, by this time it was dark, and I had only seen thathay-waggon looming up, as it were, against the evening sky. Knowing thatmy friend must soon receive better help than I could give him, Idecided that that episode in my life at least was closed. I slipped offmy goggles and dropped them beside him; then, after a momentary glanceround, I decided to try for a fence at one side, opposite that bank thathad been our undoing. It was not very high, just within reach of myhands. I made a jump for the top and scrambled over, and dropped amongsome undergrowth on the further side of it.
There is a humorous side to everything; even in my plight I wascompelled to laugh at what I now saw through a chink in the fence. Ipeered out to see what became of my friend, and as I did so I saw thatanother motor-car had stopped by the overturned one, and that the driverhad got down. Greatly to my relief I saw my friend sit up and stareabout him; even saw him smile a little ruefully at the sight of his greymonster in its present condition. And then, although I could not hearwhat he said, I saw that he was asking questions eagerly about me.
For he had lost me entirely; it was evident that the poor fellow was ina great state of perplexity. I sincerely hope that some day he may readthese lines, and so may come to an understanding of what happened to me;I heartily wished, as I looked through the fence then, that I could haverelieved his perplexity. It was evident that after his accident he wasnot at all sure whether he had left me on the road at some place orother, or whether by a miracle I had been in some fashion snatched offthe earth, and so snatched out of my predicament. As I feared, however,that he and the other man, together with the driver of the waggon, mightbegin some regular search for me, I decided that I could no longerremain where I was. I began to walk away, through thick rank grass andamong trees, going cautiously, and wondering where I was.
In truth I was so shaken that I staggered and swayed a little as Iwalked. I tried to get my ideas into some order, that I might makemyself understand what was the best thing for me to do. I came to theconclusion that I must first get a change of clothing; there was no hopefor me unless I could do that. By this time telegraph wires would havecarried messages to all parts describing me, and those messages wouldhave travelled much faster even than that unfortunate racing car bywhich I had come so far. If I could break into a house, and by somegreat good chance find clothing that would fit me, all might be well.But at the moment I stood marked and branded for all men to discover.
Somewhat to my relief and also to my dismay, I found presently that Iwas walking in the grounds of a private house. I came upon a largeartificial lake or pond, with stone seats dotted about here and therenear the margin of it; the stone seats were green and brown with mossand climbing plants that had been allowed to work their will upon them.In fact, all the grounds had a neglected appearance, and so had thehouse, too, when presently I came to it. I was just making up my mindwhich was the best window by which I might effect an entry, when I heardvoices quite near to me, and dropped at once on an instinct, and laystill.
The two figures, I now discovered, were those of a man and woman,standing close together in a little clump of trees. They had been sostill that I had walked almost up to them, and might indeed haveblundered against them but for the voices. As I lay now I could heardistinctly every word they said. The man was speaking.
"My dear, dear little friend," he said, "you know I would do anything inall the world to help you. You're not safe here; I dread that man, andfor your sake I fear him. Why don't you let me take you away from thisdreadful house? You know I would be good to you."
"Yes, I know that, Gregory," replied the girl softly. "But I can't makeup my mind--I can't be sure of myself. I can't be sure even that I loveyou well enough to let you take care of me."
"But you don't love anyone else?" he pleaded. And now, for the firsttime, as he turned his head a little, I saw the man's face. He was quiteyoung, and I noticed that he was tall, and big, and dark, of about thesame style and appearance, and even of the same age, I shouldconjecture, as myself. He was holding the girl's hands and looking downinto her eyes. I could not see her face clearly, but I judged her to besmall, and fair, and slight of figure.
"No, there is no one else I love," she answered him. "Perhaps, some day,Gregory, I may make up my mind--some day, when things get too terribleto be borne any longer here. I'm not afraid; I have a greater couragethan you think. And, after all, the man dare not kill me."
"I'm not so sure of that, Debora," said the man.
They walked away in the direction of the house, and I lay still amongthe dank grasses, watching them as they went. They disappeared round acorner of it, and still I dared not move.
After quite a long time I thought I heard in the house itself a sharpcry. Perhaps I had been half asleep, lying there with my head on myarms, but the night was very still, and it had seemed to me that I heardthe cry distinctly. At all events it roused me, and startled me to apurpose. I must get into that house, and I must get a change ofclothing. I made straight for it now, and presently found a window at aconvenient height from the ground, and some thick stems of creeper upwhich I could climb to reach it. I stood there on the window-sill for amoment or two, a grey shadow among grey shadows; then I opened thewindow, and, hearing nothing, stepped down into a room.
I found myself in intense darkness. I left the window open so that Imight make good my escape, and I began to fumble about for something bywhich I could get a light. I stumbled against a chair, and stood stillto listen; there seemed to be no sound in the room. And then while Imoved, in the hope to find a fireplace and some matches, I had thatcurious skin-stirring feeling that there was someone or something in theroom with me, silent, and watchful, and waiting. I could almost havesworn that I heard someone breathing, and restraining their breathing atthat.
I failed to find the mantelshelf, but I stumbled presently against atable. I stretched out my hands cautiously abou
t it, leaning wellforward over it as I did so, and my forehead struck against somethingthat moved away and moved back again--something swinging in mid-airabove the table.
I thought it might be a lamp, and I put out my hand to steady it. Butthat which I touched was so surprising and so horrifying that for amoment I held it, and stood there in the darkness fumbling with it, andon the verge of shrieking. For it was a man's boot I held, and there wasa foot inside it. Someone was hanging there above me.
I made straight for the window at once; I felt I was going mad. Needlessto say, I failed to find the window at all, but this time I found themantelshelf. There my hand struck against a match-box, and knocked overa candlestick with a clatter. After two or three tries I got a light,and stooped with the lighted match in my hands and found thecandlestick, and set it upright on the floor. So soon as I had steadiedmy hands to the wick and had got a flame, I looked up at the dreadfulthing above me.
Suspended from a beam that went across the ceiling was a man hanging bythe neck, dead--and the distorted, livid face was the face of the man Ihad seen in the garden but a little time before--the face of the man whohad talked with the girl!
Nor was that all. Seated at the table was another man, with armsstretched straight across it, so that the hands were under the danglingfeet of the other, and with his face sunk on the table between the arms.And this seemed to be an old man with grey hair.